Knowledge transfer capacity of universities and knowledge transfer success: evidence from university - industry collaborations in China

Abstract

Prior research on knowledge transfer capacity (KTC) tends to study KTC under the business-to-business context. However, under the context of university-industry collaborations (UICs), we have minimal knowledge regarding the KTC to date. This paper performs exploratory factor analysis and stepwise regression analysis to identify the dimensions of KTC and its influence on knowledge transfer success (KTS). We find that: 1) KTC is constituted by five dimensions which include the possession of relevant knowledge, learning capacity, coding and articulating capacity, communicating capacity, and integrating capacity; 2) the influences of four dimensions of KTS are significant but that the influence of the possession of relevant knowledge is not significant; 3) learning capacity plays a role in remedying the lack of relevant knowledge; 4) communicating capacity can replace coding and articulating capacity, and integrating capacity can replace communicating capacity. Finally, implications for theory and practice concerned with knowledge transfer in UICs are discussed.